User Reviews

Pours a murky orange with a foamy beige head that settles to wisps of film on top of the beer. Tiny dots of lace slowly drip into the remaining beer on the drink down. Smell is sour with malt, grain, acidic, wine, wood, slight mango, and slight nail polish remover aromas. Taste is much the same with wine, wood, and slight mango flavors on the finish. There is a mild amount of acidity on the palate with each sip. This beer has a lower level of carbonation with a slightly crisp and dry mouthfeel. Overall, this is a pretty good beer with a mango presence that is fairly subdued all around.

12oz serving at the Underground, an early peek at their monstrous Mikkeller tap takeover later this week.

This beer appears a mostly clear, medium copper amber hue, with one finger of loosely foamy, bubbly off-white head, which leaves a nice array of broken Swiss cheese lace around the glass as things slink away.

It smells of fairly prominent barnyard funk, well ahead of a grainy pale malt, weak fleshy tropical fruit (mango, but not mango, ya know?), a touch of overripe pineapple, a bit of wet cardboard, bittersweet citrusy, floral hops, and an earthy mineral, um, wetness. The taste is moderately funky, in a restrained horseblanket unpleasantness sort of way, with a rising sweet fruitiness, one still not quite mango-apparent, but rather generic in its suppressed tropical nature, all alongside a workaday pale malt, understated white wine fruit esters, and hints of besotted wood grain.

The carbonation is pretty sedate, nothing all that actively bubbly here, the body a decent enough medium weight, and smooth in the most introductory of ways. It finishes off-dry, sure, the musty fruit not disappearing as readily as the funk seems to.

A so-so version of the Alive series, fruity enough, I suppose, even if the mango doesn't really represent itself all that well. Everything else does, of course, so you can at least count on that particular side of the wild ale paradigm.

Lovin' this "It's Alive:" series as it captures all the rustic, raw, and un-massaged sense but without much sourness. Its savory and verbose earthiness wraps around malt sweetness for a taste that's deep and complex but not overly acidic.

The beer pours a medium caramel color that looks like Pale Ale. But the beer takes on a highly carbonated tone that is both effervescent and lively to the eye. Initially great head formation fades for form an ill-still finish where its slim acidity has cut through the substantial proteins and that would have lead to better head retention.

Mouthwatering aromas of tropical fruits- mango, apricot and pineapple set the aromatic tone just as a dusty pepper scent rises to greet malt elements of attic wood, vanillans and cream.

Flavors perform similarly as the caramelized taste and aroma make big impacts on the nose and mouth. Expressive raw barley and accompanying wheat reach into the goodie sack of, fruit and sugar. The dried fruit sense soon follows with a medium-bold vinous white wine taste that governs the beer's finish. Tropical and citrus in its attack, the beer is overwhelmed by spicy earthiness to finish.

The caramel malts make the beer seem a bit sweeter and heavier than it really is. Its boisterous carbonation lifts the beer from the mouth and makes drinkability decidedly easy. Acidity and tartness helps to thin the beer to help out in the upcoming summer months. Moderately astringent and sharp at times, but that's the name of the game when considering the wild brews.

Briny, earthen and leather-like throughout- the beer's similarities are eerily similar to the standard "It's Alive". If the label hadn't told me, I may have missed the chardonnay and mango elements.

Smell: Fruity, tropical fruits to be exact (pineapple mostly, some melon and mango). Then comes the sour part and big leathery brett funk. Also some white wine in there, maybe a bit of sulphur notes. Spicy. The smell is rich and fresh enough, a good mix for a wild ale.

Taste: Sour and cane like sweetness, fruitiness. Then comes the moderate sweet caramelish middle malt part and then the brett leather funk takes over. Some hints of white wine just before it goes down the throat. Maybe some tart too. Aftertaste filled with light bitterness - pleasant. Missing some of the fruitiness from the smell.

First of all, I could not agree more with BEERchitect's comments about this alive series. it is awesome to have such nuanced and clever wild ales without the sour component. its a real trip. this incarnation of the alive series pours a familiar copper color, a little hazy, with a robust white head with fine retention. the nose on it is more acidic than I remember, and fruity too, the wine barrel obviously making a sizable contribution right out of the gate. I don't get much mango in the nose, but I do get that funky yeast and cereal grain profile that has typified these beers. the flavor is true to the nose, with a dry sweetness from the wine. there is a short lived tropical fruit hit, but I would be hard pressed to call it mango specifically. its more of a well rounded fruit complex that plays brilliantly off the wine notes and the summery yeast. less sour more funk has been the pattern here, and this does not deviate from that. I have to say this is one of the best versions of this to come around yet. it is rare to have a beer as full of different flavors as this, yet retain its balance. fuller body than I remember in the others, and a little sweeter on the finish, but the wine provides acid to cut it, and the effervescent carbonation keeps everything moving rapidly. some people get down on mikkeller for whatever reason, but its beers like this that keep me coming back time and time again. this is truly brilliant.

Did someone just "Shanghi" Raul and take him to Hawaii? This done thing is crazy and Raul is loving every hot dog second of it. Mangos on mangos and just goodness on goodness. Like a good girl, Raul wants to take it to dinner and a movie; and like a bad girl, Raul wants to spank it.